Carbene, unsaturated

FIGURE 12.1 Illustration of the possible orientations of the alkylidene moiety for the Ru-carbene unsaturated complexes. 

Analysis The unsaturated acid (or better ester) is easy enough while the carbene reagent might be a sulphur or phosphorus yhd based on our old friend TM 31 ... 

Other potential synthetic routes to these unsaturated aziridine derivatives which involve the addition of nitrenes to allenes <75JOC224), carbenes to imines with subsequent hydrolysis <67JA362), and of carbenoid species to ketenimines <76TL1317,79TL559) have been investigated but are collectively of little or no preparative value. 

Vinyl Triflalc Chemistry Unsaturated Cations and Carbenes... 

An interesting class ot covalent Inflates are vin l and ar>/ or heteroaryl Inflates Vinyl inflates are used for the direct solvolytic generation of vinyl cations and for the generation of unsaturated carbenes via the a-elimination process [66] A triflate ester of 2-hydroxypyridine can be used as a catalyst for the acylation of aromatic compounds with carboxylic acids [109] (equation 55)... 

Co-condensation reaction of the vapors of l,3-di-rcrt-butylimidazol-2-ylidene and nickel, palladium, or platinum gives the coordinatively unsaturated 14-electron sandwiches [L M] (M=Ni, Pd, Pt) of the carbene type (990M3228). Palladium(O) carbene complexes can also be prepared by the direct interaction of l,3-R2-imidazol-2-ylidenes (R=/-Pr, r-Bu, Cy, Mes) (L) with the palladium(O) compound [Pd(P(o-Tol)3)2] (OOJOM(595)186), and the product at the first stage is [(L)PdP(o-Tol)3l, and then in excess free carbene [PdL ]. 

The coupling reaction of an a ,/3-unsaturated chromium carbene complex, e.g. 1, and an alkyne 2, through coordination to the chromium center, is called the Dotz reaction. The initial product is the chromium tricarbonyl complex of a hydroquinone derivative 3, which can easily be converted to a free hydroquinone or quinone. 

The unsaturated substituent in the carbene complex 1 often is aromatic or heteroaromatic, but can also be olefinic. The reaction conditions of the Dotz procedure are mild various functional groups are tolerated. Yields are often high. The use of chromium hexacarbonyl is disadvantageous, since this compound is considered to be carcinogenic however to date it cannot be replaced by a less toxic compound. Of particular interest is the benzo-anellation procedure for the synthesis of anthra-cyclinones, which are potentially cytostatic agents. ... 

Additions include the attachment of two univalent atoms or groups (called addends) to an unsaturated system, e. g., to olefins, carbonyl groups, aromatic systems, carbenes, etc. (Rule 2.1). For example, the addition of hydrocyanic acid to the car-... 

Based on these assumptions many different heteroatom-substituted carbenes have been synthesized. They are not limited to unsaturated cyclic di-aminocarbenes (imidazolin-2-ylidenes Scheme 3, A) [17-22] with stericbulk to avoid dimerization like 1 l,2,4-triazolin-5-ylidenes (Scheme 3, B), saturated... 

Fischer-type carbene complexes, generally characterized by the formula (CO)5M=C(X)R (M=Cr, Mo, W X=7r-donor substitutent, R=alkyl, aryl or unsaturated alkenyl and alkynyl), have been known now for about 40 years. They have been widely used in synthetic reactions [37,51-58] and show a very good reactivity especially in cycloaddition reactions [59-64]. As described above, Fischer-type carbene complexes are characterized by a formal metal-carbon double bond to a low-valent transition metal which is usually stabilized by 7r-acceptor substituents such as CO, PPh3 or Cp. The electronic structure of the metal-carbene bond is of great interest because it determines the reactivity of the complex [65-68]. Several theoretical studies have addressed this problem by means of semiempirical [69-73], Hartree-Fock (HF) [74-79] and post-HF [80-83] calculations and lately also by density functional theory (DFT) calculations [67, 84-94]. Often these studies also compared Fischer-type and... 

Scheme 9 Saturated and unsaturated carbenes, silylenes and germylenes...

Reaction of ayfi-Unsaturated Fischer Carbene Complexes with Alkenes,... 

Scheme 1 Synthesis of a,/ -unsaturated Fischer carbene complexes 3 from (pentacarbonyl)-metallaacylates 2 [12-15]...

Due to the high a-C,H acidity in the alkoxyethylidene complexes 6 (e.g.,piCa=8 (R=Me)) [ 16], transformations via an enolate analog are possible and have been used to introduce additional functionality into the carbene side chain to access various Fischer carbene complexes [3]. The a,/J-unsaturated complex 8 could be obtained from 6 (R=Et) by an aldol-type condensation with benzaldehyde 7 in the presence of triethylamine and trimethylsilyl chloride (Scheme 2) [17]. This reaction proceeds completely diastereoselectively to yield only the trans-isomer. Analogously, binuclear complexes have been prepared from 6 and 1,3-and 1,4-phthaldialdehyde in good yields [17]. This type of condensation has... 

Scheme 4 Access to various a,/ -unsaturated carbene complexes from alkynylcarbene complexes 23. A 1,3-Dipolar cycloaddition. B Diels-Alder reaction. C Ene reaction. D [2+2] Cycloaddition. E Michael-type addition followed by cyclization. F Michael-type additions...

This reaction mode of alkynylcarbene complexes of type 23 undoubtedly provides the most convenient access to /J-amino-substituted a,/J-unsaturated Fischer carbene complexes 27 (X=NH2, NHR2, NR2). Fischer et al. reported the very first such addition of an amine to an alkynylcarbene complex of type 23 and observed a temperature-dependent competition between 1,4- and 1,2-addition [12]. In a later systematic study, de Meijere et al. found that in addition to the 1,4-addition products 30,1,2-addition-elimination (formal substitution)... 

The insertion of alkynes into a chromium-carbon double bond is not restricted to Fischer alkenylcarbene complexes. Numerous transformations of this kind have been performed with simple alkylcarbene complexes, from which unstable a,/J-unsaturated carbene complexes were formed in situ, and in turn underwent further reactions in several different ways. For example, reaction of the 1-me-thoxyethylidene complex 6a with the conjugated enyne-ketimines and -ketones 131 afforded pyrrole [92] and furan 134 derivatives [93], respectively. The alkyne-inserted intermediate 132 apparently undergoes 671-electrocyclization and reductive elimination to afford enol ether 133, which yields the cycloaddition product 134 via a subsequent hydrolysis (Scheme 28). This transformation also demonstrates that Fischer carbene complexes are highly selective in their reactivity toward alkynes in the presence of other multiple bonds (Table 6). 

In 20 years of usage, a,/J-unsaturated Fischer carbene complexes demonstrated their multitalented versatility in organic synthesis, yet new reaction types are still being discovered every year. In view of their facile preparation and multifold reactivity, their versatile chemistry will undoubtedly be further developed and applied in years to come. The application of chirally modified Fischer carbene complexes in asymmetric synthesis has only begun, and it will probably be an important area of research in the near future. 

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